Resolution in support of youth demanding urgent climate action COUNCIL OF MEMBERS, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, 12-13 APRIL 2019 COMEM 1 0052-19-FINAL Young people are demanding climate action all across Europe. Throughout Europe, young people are on the streets demanding climate action. In initiatives like Fridays for Future, Thursday for the Climate or Youth Strike 4 Climate, thousands of students gather each week to protest for immediate and decisive actions to fight the climate crisis, forming a still growing movement for climate action. Also at the various other youth-led and non-youth-led climate marches taking place all across Europe, young people are at the forefront. Young people perceive climate action as top priority. The young people protesting on the streets represent the opinion of young people in Europe in general: the fight against climate change is perceived to be a top priority by young people in Europe. In the recent youth edition of the Eurobarometer, 50% of young people believe that the “protection of the environment and fight against climate change” should be a priority for the European Union. Only one other topic, “education and skills”, was given such a high priority (mentioned by 53%).1 92% of all young people in the European Union aged 15-24 consider climate change to be a fairly serious problem and 73% even as a very serious problem.2 The statistical data even indicates that young people are more worried about the consequences of climate change than about the economic situation.3 Alarmingly, only 9% of youth are very confident the world will act quickly enough to address climate change, which shows a clear need for decisive and immediate action.4 1 Flash Eurobarometer 455 “European Youth”, p. 40, published in January 2018; Noteworthy, the survey was conducted in September 2017, before the most recent climate strikes started. 2 Special Eurobarometer 459 “Climate Change”, p. 22, published in September 2017, field work conducted in March 2017 3 Special Eurobarometer 459 “Climate Change”, p. 16, published in September 2017, field work conducted in March 2017; results of Generation What study (http://www.generation- what.de/europe/map/occupy). 4 UNEP, GlobeScan Survey, 2008; https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/environment-climate- change/ COMEM 2 0052-19-FINAL The climate crisis is an emergency and requires decisive and immediate action. This perception, shared by the young people protesting, is supported by strong scientific evidence. There is scientific consensus that decisive and immediate action is necessary in order to contain the disastrous consequences of climate change and to avoid at least its most harmful and catastrophic implications.5 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasises that therefore, “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” are required6 and that “the next few years are probably the most important in our history”.7 According to estimations, without immediate and sufficient action the critical threshold of an increase of the global temperature of 1.5C° might be already reached as early as 2030.8 It is necessary to identify the root causes of climate change in order to challenge the status quo. It has been documented that 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 come from only 100 companies.9 While the ten countries that emit the highest amount of greenhouse gases are industrialised and developed countries, those suffering the most from their negative and harmful effects are among the poorest countries in the world, largely in Africa and Asia.10 It is also a socio- economic matter when it comes to the responsibility for climate change; the world’s richest 10% produce half of all carbon emissions in the world.11 Individual, citizens’ responsibility and direct action must be encouraged and supported. However, the responsibility for combating climate change should be on big business12 and governments in order to make meaningful change. Systemic change is required to counteract climate change. 5 Benestad, R.E., Nuccitelli, D., Lewandowsky, S. et al. Theor Appl Climatol (2016) 126: 699 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1597-5); cf. also YFJ resolution “On European youth fighting against Climate Change”, May 2008. 6 https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global- warmiarteng-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/ 7 IPCC: Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C approved by governments (https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of- ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/ ) 8 IPCC Special Report Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, p. 66 (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter1_Low_Res.pdf ) 9 Carbon Majors Database: https://b8f65cb373b1b7b15feb- c70d8ead6ced550b4d987d7c03fcdd1d.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/cms/reports/documents/000/002/ 327/original/Carbon-Majors-Report-2017.pdf?1499691240 10 PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency: https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/pbl-2015-trends-in-global-co2- emisions_2015-report_01803.pdf 11 Oxfam: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-12-02/worlds-richest-10- produce-half-carbon-emissions-while-poorest-35 12 Definition "big business": The term includes all kinds of polluters, multinational corporations and other companies in the economy. COMEM 3 0052-19-FINAL The present and projected harmful changes caused by climate change include rising surface temperatures, more regular and longer heat waves, wildfires, more intense and frequent extreme precipitation events, the melting of permafrost and glaciers, a rising global mean sea level, and an acidifying and warming ocean. All of these changes are starting to damage or even destroy the ecosystems of our planet and impact biodiversity.13 Furthermore, the consequences to human health are also severe: according to the WHO, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050, resulting from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.14 15 It is also necessary to take into account that extreme consequences of climate change are leading to humanitarian emergencies. We can see displacement of entire communities due to natural disasters related to climate change, which is producing internally displaced people (IDP) and climate refugees. Moreover, there is a loss in terms of language and cultural diversity by the eradication of entire communities. According to the UNFCCC secretariat, the present effects of climate change are already causing economic damages amounting to billions of Euros.16 In particular, those who are already suffering from socio-economic disadvantages are likely to suffer most from the detrimental consequences of climate change.17 Young people are affected by climate change particularly strongly. The OECD Youth Stocktaking Report points out that climate change is an example of a global challenge “that will impact young people much more than those who currently decide on how to deal with them”, therefore criticising that young people “have the least influence on policies that affect them the most.”18 Young people are already, and will continue to be the part of society that is most affected by climate change. The socio-economic burden they carry, especially in the current context, will increase with the consequences of climate change. Indeed, climate change reveals and reinforces inequalities especially for young people and particularly young women, and more so if they are living in the Global South.19 20 13 YFJ resolution “Climate matters: The vision of European Youth for COP21”, November 2015; https://unfccc.int/news/the-cost-of-climate-change 14 http://ifmsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016MM_PS_Climate-Change-and-health.pdf 15 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/134014/9789241507691_eng.pdf 16 https://unfccc.int/news/the-cost-of-climate-change 17 YFJ resolution “Climate matters: The vision of European Youth for COP21”, November 2015 18 http://www.oecd.org/gov/engaging-and-empowering-youth-across-the-oecd.pdf 19 YFJ resolution “Climate matters: The vision of European Youth for COP21”, November 2015 20 United Nations Joint Framework Initiative on Children, Youth and Climate Change, 2010, http://bit.ly/1FBQsfy; https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/environment-climate-change/ COMEM 4 0052-19-FINAL The current efforts to combat climate change fall short by far. Despite climate change being an emergency that requires immediate and decisive action to be undertaken by all states, the European Union and the international community and all sectors of the society, including especially the global economy, the efforts to combat climate change are so far significantly insufficient and far too slow.21 Alarmingly, most countries have not even met the goals they agreed upon in the Paris Agreement of 2015; all European countries have failed to increase their climate action efforts to meet the goals commonly agreed upon in the 2015 Agreement, and many of them missed their targets by a wide margin.22 The interests and opinion of young people in Europe must not be ignored any longer. THE MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN YOUTH FORUM Stressing the need to acknowledge that young people have a right to a future in a healthy environment, Acknowledging the United Nations Climate Change Conferences’ 2015 Agreement reached at the Conference of the Parties in Paris, referred to hereafter as the Paris Agreement23, Taking into account the existing